To think another great Depression is coming?

[littleblackdress04]

Spoke to a surveyor friend yesterday - he said they can’t value houses at the moment as they think they could lose up to 50% of their value. Also read an article about how another Great Depression is coming.

Is it the re-set we need as a world? The end of billionaires when millions have no food? What will the societal impact be?

I personally hope it’s a fairer, kinder society where everyone gets their basic needs met

Here’s a guardian article today supporting the theory 🙄www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/03/coronavirus-uk-business-activity-plunges-to-lowest-ebb-since-records-began

I agree with @Pishposhpashy. Once this is all under control we can expect a return to more or less what we had before. Unemployment a bit higher and public services cut to pay for the current government spending, a recession for sure, but the world won't be vastly different to what it was a few weeks ago.

the state is currently printing money to support the millions or businesses it has just had to bail out-

great, how is that going long term do you think?

let's read a bit about what happened when people had to carry suitcase of money to pay for a pack of bread as the money was worth so little...

Crikey Ethelfleda! Unexpected!

Every thread has a silver lining!

The guardian article actually mentions how we are in such uncharted waters they can’t event comprehend it so anyone that thinks that life will go back to normal after this is beyond deluded!

I know of a number of larger car manufacturers who are actively preparing for how busy they are expecting to be once we are all out of lockdown...

The guardian article actually mentions how we are in such uncharted waters they can’t event comprehend it so anyone that thinks that life will go back to normal after this is beyond deluded!

Ah, well, if the guardian thinks it then it must be right

The fact of the matter is, you can wheel out as many economists as you like, and they can make all the predictions they want, but unless they have a time machine they don't know what is going to happen. And neither do you.

I think life will, gradually, return to normal. You don't. That's fine. Doesn't make me deluded.

Really @Ethelfleda - who will be buying them? All those people who no longer have jobs.
Number of people in 2008 financial crisis that signed on in a week 85,000

Number of people last week- 950,000

You are talking bollocks I am afraid

Also not to do that "my husband's uncle's cousin's cat's hairdresser says" thing, but I also know a fairly well known and respected economist whose opinion is the same as mine. Shitty for a little while then bounce back.

And the banks are much better prepared for financial devastation than they were in 2008.

I honestly think some posters are literally desperate for this to be the end of the world.

One thing is for certain, the banks will not lose and if they do, government will be increasing sovereign debt to bail them out again.

I live in Mexico. Half of Mexico's budget already goes on paying off a bank bail-out in 1995 and will do until 2070. Now big business is furious because the government is refusing to take on more sovereign debt to bail it out. If you hear of a military coup in Mexico, that will be the reason.

*People really have no concept of the scale of what's coming.

The virus is nothing in comparison and probably neither is the Great Depression.

People have largely stopped spending. Money has stopped circulating. The level of fuckage coming really cannot be underestimated.*

Oh for heaven's sake!!

Why post this doomsday twaddle, who does it help?

Look, there almost certainly will be a recession, a bad one, more austerity measures, redundancy, difficult times
But here's the thing..... there will be businesses who are booming after this, businesses who create more jobs for people, opportunities for new businesses to start, opportunities for people to get involved in the inevitable rebuilding of our country. It won't be all roses and sunshine once a vaccine's found. It'll be tough, but it won't be all bad. We'll jet off abroad a lot less and stay at home more, we'll appreciate our friends and families and our freedom more than we ever have.
We will get through this, just as people have faced and got through tough times in the past, we are facing a difficult patch in our immediate history, not the end of the world.

Hopefully in a few weeks the numbers of deaths will peak, stabilise and then drop. Restrictions will be lifted, bit by bit and things will start to get back to “normal”, assuming the virus doesn’t mutate.

What will take longer is the economy. Many businesses will have gone to the wall, in tourism and hospitality particularly. Charities and the Third Sector have lost huge amounts of fund raising income. The suspending of festivals such as the Edinburgh Festival will hit the creative industries hard, and punch a huge hole through the generated income for the city. And so on, with sporting events, travel etc.

And all it will take as this fragile new world rebuilds, is another virus....

Just to counter the surveyor comment - they can’t physically do valuations on the property because of the lockdown.

But I know that mortgages are being approved this week without physical valuations taking place (presumably based on reviewing at all the data they have on valuations in the local area I believe). And surveyors are not economists so one saying the reckon house prices would fall x% is not very meaningful. It is true that some lenders have reduced the borrowing they are doing at the moment but there are still some lending on higher loan to values ratios.

People are still spending , some businesses are doing well from this. It's just as likely we will see a "bounce back" ...in the style of the roaring twenties or the 1950s

You are talking bollocks I am afraid

Oooooookay
Apologies for not believing a random article in the Guardian that the world is about to come crashing down around our ears. But I just don’t.

Not everyone has lost their job, either. There will be many, many people who will want to get out and spend their money when this is over.

But you believe what you like and carry on getting irrationally worked up with people disagreeing with you, that’s fine.

@littleblackdress04 : AIBU?

A few others, including @Ethelfleda : I think so. But none of us really know so let’s agree to disagree

@littleblackdress04: You are talking bollocks!

The point of AIBU is to solicit opinions. If you’re going to read one Guardian op-Ed and take it as fact refuse to listen to any other viewpoint, why bother posting?

No, frankly I don't. The virus will pass, the economy will bounce back and people will resume their normal lives.

Saying that of the world economy is akin to looking at a patient on ECMO and, with a wave of the hand, airily proclaiming "this will pass, they'll bounce back and resume their normal life."

Unlike the ECMO patient, the economy will certainly survive this, but in what form, and in what residual state? Will the West continue to prevail? That last question will determine the quality and direction of the rest of our lives and that of our descendants.

Yes OP I think a Great Depression is coming.

I was thinking that every country that has corona will probably have to borrow money from the world bank. There won’t be enough. What happens then?

@Pishposhpashy of course it would be stupid to believe what I read in the guardian but to quote the article:

‘In a stark forecast as job losses mount around the world, David Blanchflower, professor of economics at Dartmouth College in the US and a member of the Bank’s interest rate-setting monetary policy committee during the 2008 financial crisis, said unemployment was rising at the fastest rate in living memory’

Not just a random journalist- actually from someone who does know what he’s talking about

Yet another thread where a worrying number of adults clearly have no idea how the world actually works and don't have a clue about even basic economics

@GranolaBars no, as I quoted above- not just a random journo- but a professor of economics who knows a hell of a lot more than some of the posters on this thread

Also, OP, it’s not helpful to scaremonger over this topic as it can have the effect of convincing those who have money to not spend it.

If house prices go down 50% my mortgage doesn't so I won't be selling. If I can't pay my mortgage for some reason I'll go bankrupt and live in a tent.